


What If It Hadn't Been Maedhros?

by ArvenaPeredhel



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Other, at all, not a happy story you guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 15:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16915755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArvenaPeredhel/pseuds/ArvenaPeredhel
Summary: Five ways the story might have gone.





	1. Maglor

**Author's Note:**

> A serious thank you to elf-esteem and emsleita and makalaurels and tolkien-in-beleriand and my small army of volunteers. This is for you.

Maglor insists he be allowed to go. 

“You’re the King.” he says, and he means it. “You must stay here and lead our people. I shall go in your stead, as your herald; if Moringoþo betrays us our loss shall be lesser.” Unwillingly Maedhros lets him; he does not return from their appointed meeting place. 

The second son of Fëanor is overpowered - he isn’t the warrior he would become, not yet, none of them are - and borne away in chains after his loyal guard are slaughtered before his eyes. When they bring him before the cold throne deep within Angband their foe laughs to see the fair-voiced singer brought so low. “You sang for your brothers, and your people, and your father.” he said, and his voice was a rumbling purr that veiled terrible ice. “Such a pity you will sing no more." 

Maglor stands alone and defiant, his eyes alight with the memory of Tirion in its glory and of the stars; his stare burns into Morgoth as he is dragged down into fire and darkness to be beaten and broken at the whim of the Lord of Angband. And he is beaten, oh he is beaten, and burned, and toyed with, and violated, until the stars aren’t just a memory they’re behind his eyes every time he blinks, until his fire-born fury turns to panic, until he forgets the words to every song he ever wrote. 

As they break the bones in his hands he screams, and they laugh and taunt him with talk of his music. Yet still he is defiant; he swore an Oath. He will not back down from that. He cannot. So he lasts through the jeering and the chains and the blows sharp as a sword until finally they tire of him and leave him in the dark. By now he has lost the memory of his melodies.

When at last the orcs seem to remember him it’s with a gift of water, a full bucket even, shoved through the flap at the bottom of his cell door. The sight of it fills him with relief. He cannot remember the last time he had water; he practically inhales it.

But once he’s swallowed every drop he realizes his mistake in blindly trusting to his captors’ need to keep him alive, because it burns, because his throat is on fire and his stomach is in agony. He crawls to a far corner of his cell and throws up. When he’s at last emptied his hollow innards of bile and the orcs’ trick it becomes clear that it’s too late, that he was a fool. Whatever poison they fed him has left him completely mute, unable even to hum a simple melody. He cries himself into oblivion, the empty air full of silent sobs, and doesn’t wake even when the door to his cell is thrown open and the orcs pull him up from the pits. 

He comes to at last and finds he’s freezing and alone in the open air, pinned by the shattered remains of one wrist to one of Thangorodrim’s razor-edged peaks by an iron shackle; he begins at last to despair. Rescue from such a desolate place is impossible. He will waste away to nothing, bound to his body by the Oath. He cannot will himself to death, and his spirit burns too hot in him to fade. There is no chance of freedom. 

One day he catches a stone that was shaken loose by a storm in his left hand, broken and barely usable though it may be. The red lines its edges cut in his palm remind him he is still alive, for he can still feel pain. He wants to die. He is not sure how to accomplish that end. He can’t grip the stone tightly enough to cut his wrist open and bleed out. He resolves to wait.

Hope comes at last unlooked for in the form of an awkward song and a badly-played air on a harp. He remembers that harp, recalls its warm tones that lend beauty even when poorly handled. He remembers that voice as well - _Maitimo?_ \- but despite efforts that leave him crying in frustration he is unable to answer. Morgoth’s final torment will last, it seems. He shall be forever mute. Slowly he forces his eyes to open, to spot the copper hair of his almost-forgotten sibling below, who unbeknownst to him had come in search of a way to free his younger brother and had played the harp in an effort to calm down when no obvious entry had been found. 

In a panic - _I can’t lose him, I can’t, he must find me, he might kill me_ \- he realizes that without his voice he is helpless. A pain in his left hand - the rock - he shifts, grasping his piece of the mountain and strikes it against the band that holds him to the stone. His muscles protest after their years of uselessness, and every motion sends needles of fire dancing down his arms, but he forces himself to move and ignores this new pain. The sound alerts his brother below. He cannot speak, try as he might, but he lifts the knife-edged rock to the veins of his neck. The gesture is a plea to be slain, to be freed, to find peace after years of torment; Maitimo frowns and answers ‘no’, determined to the last. He tries and fails to draw his only weapon across his exposed throat, but his strength is spent and he loses his grip on the rock. The last thing he hears before falling into frightened, shocked unconsciousness is its clatter on the stones.

He doesn’t remember much of how he was saved, only the whoosh of air and the brush of feathers and white hot agony in his right wrist. When he comes to in the safety of Mithrim, rescued by his older brother, he soundlessly weeps half from joy and half from misery  and wonders if he would have been so brave  had it been Nelyo who was taken by the enemy.


	2. Celegorm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to makalaurels, tolkien-in-beleriand, and everyone else who volunteered to help. Triggers: gore (specifically blood).

Celegorm, as soon as he hears that his brother means to parley with Morgoth, decides that enough is enough and it’s time to go on the offensive. “We are the House of Fëanáro.” he declares to Curufin, who privately agrees. “We do not parley.” He musters the troops, and they ride to meet the enemy, bringing far more than the agreed-upon number of soldiers. They do not expect the Balrogs. 

It is Huan who saves him from death, dragging him from the whips of fire so that he does not fall as his father did, but the rescue is a hollow one for their fellow warriors are dead and burnt and the orcs close in. Of the seven of them it is Celegorm who was the fighter, and so he does not go quietly; Huan nearly tears a hole in the wall of foes before his master is struck on the head and is bound in bands of iron and carried bodily back to Angband. There is nothing to be done save follow, and so follow he does, even past the gates of the Iron Hells.

Morgoth is eminently pleased with his newest prize, and his grin gleams like the fangs of his wolves. “Take him below.” he says. “Let’s see how our fighter fares when we put him to the test.” The third son of Fëanor stands tall, perfectly controlled fury evident in the lines of his muscles, and he walks proudly to whatever fate awaits him. He does not fear beatings, or torture, or whatever terrors of the mind his enemy might conjure for him. But he does not expect what he finds in the bowels of the mountains. 

He is stripped, his shoulder branded; Huan is torn from his side and beaten into submission, muzzled and chained in a cell that is little bigger than a coffin. He is silent at the cries of his companion, though there are tears in his eyes. When they are satisfied the dog will be no trouble, he is sent into a brightly lit pit, naked and unarmed, and given one instruction: _fight for your life. Kill or be killed._

They bring orcs against him, one after the other, each new combatant stronger than the last. Armed only with his wits, he finds he is able to outmatch them, using nails and teeth when he cannot steal their weapons. Hours pass, and when he collapses in exhaustion the guards pour burning liquor down his throat and push him back into the ring. When at last he can take no more he is dragged, bruised and battered, into a cell. A few hours later they begin again.

His days pass in a haze of sand and blood. Orcs turn to wolves; he becomes adept at tearing their throats out with his teeth. He fights as they do, on hands and knees, springing and snarling. Eventually he realizes he hasn’t spoken in countless weeks. The thought seems alien when there is death at hand, when there are more creatures of darkness to slay. He is a hunter, and he hunts exceptionally well and fills his empty stomach with the meat from his kills. 

A day comes when there are no more orcs, no more wolves, and in animalistic simplicity he dares to hope that the endless hours of combat and fiery drink and whips if you refuse are over and he can finally sleep in peace. He is wrong. Waiting for him in the pit are a tight-knit of frightened elves, eyes wide and faces sunken. Slaves. Sindar and Avari, half-dead already from starvation. Something in him rebels, thinks that he ought to feel differently about these than the others, but words are lost to him at this point. The familiar order comes - “Kill or be killed." 

He kills.

It is then, when he is left crouched among the bodies of distant kin with their blood dripping from his red mouth, that the guards stop their mocking and fall upon him. A collar snaps about his neck, and as he is dragged up from the depths he passes a tiny cell and hears a faint yelp of recognition. He isn’t sure why the sound makes him cry.

The orcs lead him to the Enemy’s throne once more, only now he’s crawling at the heels of his captors, their leash slack, and he growls at the darkness and at the figure before him, who is familiar and yet he cannot remember _why_ , why the three burning lights in the crown above set his heart racing. Morgoth smiles. 

"I think you shall make a fine bargaining chip, Turcafinwë.” he purrs. “When they see you your brothers will surely retreat, give up their cause. And if not? You can kill them for me.” _Kill_. He knows that word, knows it means blood in his mouth and a full belly afterwards. But he doesn’t trust the one speaking, and he tugs at his leash until at last the guards turn to leave. They move out from the gates, marching southward, soon hitting woodlands and forest. 

Forest. He remembers the forest, remembers it means safety, and good hunting. Far better hunting than he might find with the orcs. They think he’s broken, and it’s only a matter of time before one night his sleeping watcher’s hand goes slack. He snaps his chain easily. His hands are strong. The envoy that means to bear him to his brothers is slaughtered in a matter of moments.

The Sindar who dwell in those woods become noted for their peculiar legend, of a wolf who walks in the skin of an elf. Try as they might, none of the Noldor ever discover the truth behind it.

 


	3. Caranthir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are not nice. At all. They are awful and terrible and I am an awful and terrible person.

“Is there any question who is to go? Truly?” Caranthir asks, and his eyes are flashing as he speaks. “Nelyo is needed to rule, Káno to advise, Turko to hunt, Curvo to craft and build and plan. And Pityo cannot go. He is far too young. I am expendable.” His brothers argue, but he wins through sheer stubbornness. He rides out the next morning with a fair amount of soldiers; Morgoth’s force is the greater. The others are cut down around him.

His name proves to be prophetic, for as he is chained and taken screaming from the battlefield, his heart pounding out a death waltz, his face is red with the blood of fallen comrades. He is dragged before the throne in Angband’s belly, shaking off his guards despite the manacles on his wrists and standing proud as Morgoth watches him. There is hatred rolling off of him.

“Give me the Silmarils.” he demands. “Or else slay me where I stand.”

The form on the throne chuckles bemusedly. “Oh, I think not.” he says, his voice sending needles dancing over his captive’s skin. “I think I shall break you, Morifinwë." 

Caranthir spits in the general direction of the throne and is dealt a sharp blow from the nearest guard in retaliation. He stumbles but does not fall, glaring up at Morgoth. The anger in his eyes is a clear message: _I dare you to break me. I_ dare _you, Moringoþo_. The figure on the throne merely smiles, gesturing to the guards. As he’s pulled down deep into darkness, the last thing he sees is the burning ice of his foe’s eyes.

The orcs beat him savagely. Their tortures are unending - whips, clubs, knives, brands - and their hatred is equally vast. It only takes a matter of days for his body to be warped and his flesh shredded. He can hear the cries of other slaves in other cells, perhaps being given the same treatment. He endures, and time passes slowly, marked by pain and the drip-drop of his blood from countless cuts onto the floor.

His spirit is unbroken. The Oath is knitting his fëa to his hröa, keeping him from dying, letting him survive on the strength of will alone. Orcs come and go. They will always come and go. Each time he greets them with a fire-born smile and a fresh round of insults; when they bind him again in chains that slice his flesh to ribbons he curses them. His spirit is boundless. He will not break. He will not break.

But he does, eventually, begin to give in to despair.

Hours bleed together into days without end. Dehydration and starvation punctuate the pains of his torments with the pains of a body that screams to be nourished. He smiles a half-mad grin and endures, and endures, and _endures_. He was once famed for his temper; its fire sustains him now. He tries to plot an escape, but each time is stymied. And every failure brings him closer to the breaking point Morgoth seeks. He knows this, feels it knit in his bones. _I cannot let him win._

It is ten years after his capture when he makes his decision; by now he has nothing left to lose. Countless hours of torture have left his legs twisted beyond use. Walking would be impossible, and running is barely a dream. A dream like the stars, like his family, like home. 

His arms are lacerated to the bone and the wounds are festering. He grows feverish, but does not die. He finds quickly that he cannot die, and neither can he fade - the Oath binds him to life unless he moves to end it. He cannot will himself to Mandos. He must have an active hand in it. With escape impossible and rescue increasingly unlikely, he realizes his options are few. He is bound hand and foot to a solid stone wall, unable to move his appendages more than a few inches in either direction. The orcs must have predicted this. 

He is determined. He will find a way to die before anyone might kill him. 

The guards find him the next morning. The back of his skull is smashed into the wall that bound his arms and legs. 

Despite the bloody mess there is a smile on his face.


	4. Curufin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is… surprisingly lighthearted?

Curufin demands to ride out, and none of his brothers can find it in their heart to stop him. The fire in him is stirred, and he is burning as he leaves. He is proud, determined not merely to treat but to come back victorious; he does not come back at all.  
He is deadly silent as he is brought before the throne. Morgoth observes him in equal silence, eyes glittering in the dark. Once the dark-haired Noldo sees the Silmarils, however, he draws himself up and glares.

“You are a thief.” he intones boldly. “And you bear the evidence on your brow. Return what you have stolen to me and you will come to no harm.”

At that Morgoth laughs, the sound shaking the bones of the mountains. “Curufinwë,” he says, “so like your father. But now it is my house, and you are my caller. I shall treat you as I was treated by Fëanáro. That is, after all, your desire, is it not? To be like him?” In spite of himself Curufin trembles. The legacy of his sire is one he has struggled to come to terms with for years. His foe sees the fear, the uncertainty, and is secretly pleased. 

He pretends to break after his third conversation with Mairon. Morgoth’s lackey delights in toying with him, peeling back the layers of his thought and laying bare his uncertainties; were he less determined to regain the Silmarils he might have been affected. He has been beaten badly by now, though his bones are unbroken and his body relatively whole. He suspects the black foe has greater plans for him, and the presence of the gleaming Maia is further evidence of that. Carefully he begins to plan. _If I am wanted, I can exploit that and regain the Silmarils._

So he talks, and weeps, and answers, and is just defiant enough to mask his aims. Some of his tormentor’s barbs struck close enough to home to wound him regardless, but he is the best liar in his family save his father and his acting is flawless.

When Morgoth visits him next he promises to serve if only he will be allowed to live. He paints the perfect picture with his words and body and contrite tone, and is released from his cell only to be chained to a forge. He is still a captive, but now he is a captive with a plan, and with a hammer and tools.

He is free of beatings if he works, so work he does. His strength returns gradually, the wounds on his body healing, and as he returns to something resembling his former health he plots. _I work and am rewarded with relative peace. Eventually perhaps I may be trusted enough to roam free, and then I shall take my chance and regain my family’s heirlooms. But in the meantime I am chained to this forge.  
I will be dead before I give Moringoþo anything close to my highest quality._

Sabotage becomes the order of the day. A well-placed tap here, a poorly-cooled coupling there, subpart steel all around. His works will not fail on their first test, or even on their hundredth, but they will fail. Morgoth’s armies will be ill-prepared in battle, and all the while he waits for his chance to steal back what is rightfully his family’s. Days turn to weeks and months and years. Decades pass, and still he plays his long game and he waits.

Of course, he is eventually found out. A hinge he swore would last a thousand years fails in five. And Morgoth is not so easy to trust as he had first suspected. He is beaten again, and given over to Mairon and his wolves to be tortured. Soon his plan in its entirety is drawn from his unwilling thoughts.

Morgoth is furious. “You dare to lie to me, the father of lies?” he intones. Curufin is nonplussed. He no longer fears death, for without the Silmarils death is all that awaits him. Judgment is passed - guilty of treason. 

He scoffs at that. “Treason? What treason? You are no King!” In response an orc brings a club smacking into his head. He is robbed of breath and taken back to the forge, to the great vats of melting ore. His sentence is death, immediate and painful. He is stoic and defiant until the end.

“Tell me, child of fire,” Mairon says almost seductively as he perches on the edge of the stone, “do you fear to burn?”

Curufin only glares as he’s cast down, the heat of his eyes scorching his Maia captor long after his body has been consumed by the molten steel.


	5. Amras

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last one. Promise it’s something of a happy ending. Consider it a Mother’s Day gift.

Amras is not supposed to go.

He is meant to be asleep, at home, in bed as his eldest brother and his King rides out to treat with Morgoth. But he cannot sleep, and the more he sits at home the more he worries and the more he thinks. Amrod is dead, burned at Losgar with the ships that might have carried the two of them home; the death of his twin has robbed him of something indescribable, something vital. He cannot bring himself to lie quietly with that hole itching at his soul, with the darkness of loneliness creeping in through the cracks in his well-constructed armor. Dread fills him, dread of Morgoth, dread of the coming parley. He knows in his heart that Maedhros believes none of those who venture forth will return, but that it is the duty of a King to ride out regardless.

He has already lost one brother. He cannot bring himself to lose another.

It is early - by Valinorean reckoning at least - and cold when he slips out of his tent. He is clad in the armor his father crafted for him, and bearing the sword that he drew upon Túna to swear the Oath. The assembled soldiers are confused; they were told to expect Maedhros. “A change of plans.” he says, mounting his brother’s horse. “I am the most gifted rhetorician. It was decided hours earlier that I am the best choice." 

That is a lie, though it is smooth on his lips. He is the least experienced of his brothers, and the one with the least to offer their people. He is going in the hopes that they will not lose another King so soon. Before his siblings can stop him, he is away, bound for the fated parley. They had counted on treachery, but the Balrogs overcome their host and when the orcs have bound him he is forced to watch as one by one his loyal guard are slain. He is weeping already as the victorious score of soldiers bring him through the gates of Angband.

Before the throne of Morgoth he is a wreck. His knees give out, and he sinks to the floor, and he sobs; his enemy is elated with such a vulnerable catch. "You’ll be a pleasure to toy with.” the black foe says, and means every word. “Break him utterly.” There is abject terror in his eyes as he is dragged down to be stripped and tortured. He’s crying even without the first taste of the whip. It’s only a matter of time.

The orcs do their job, combining pain with darkness and starvation and fear until he cracks and shatters, screaming for his mother and begging them to stop, _please, I’ll do anything you say_. Once that’s done he’s taken deeper still, to the forges, where a collar is welded shut about his neck and fastened to a length of chain; he’s then led on a leash up countless stairs until at last he’s reached the cold black darkness of Morgoth’s throne room.

“My prized pet.” his captor says, and he trembles at the words. His chain is anchored to the massive throne. There is nowhere he can go to be alone save the darkness of unconsciousness, and soon enough even that is stolen from him, for Morgoth delights in meddling, in shifting his own Song, in finding his worst fears and giving them life. He sinks into a world of half-remembered dreams, aided by fingers like knives that slice through his mind. His brothers die a thousand times over in a thousand different ways, always too late for him to save them. And when that fails to frighten him he begins to die, each time a little different, always pleading for his mother. He loathes the Oath that keeps him alive and begins to pray for death.

Uncounted years pass. There is no way of knowing how many, or how long, or what is real beyond the cold of the stone floor and the icy hot throne he is bound to. He begs for death with every beat of his treacherous heart, and he renounces the Oath with every breath he takes. He wants to go home. He wishes he’d never bothered riding out. Maedhros was right. He is far too young for such a thing. He cries himself to sleep when he knows for sure he’s awake, though what a mother is and why he wants one he cannot recall.

He comes to for a fleeting second and thinks he’s seen Varda. She is lithe, and graceful, and she is a beautiful dancer, her hair about her like a cloak and her skin pale as the stars. Somewhere he remembers that’s not right, it’s someone else who dances, but before he can ponder this he falls into a deep sleep. The last thing he hears is the thud of a heavy crown striking the floor. He wakes up hours later and wonders at the fact that he did not dream. He thanks the Valar for their gift. Morgoth’s anger is terrifying; his reprieve does not last. He has forgotten his name, if indeed he ever had one.

After his vision, things change. There is a little less light in the cold room, and the hand that grips his heart and soul begins to squeeze more tightly. His visions grow darker still; his brothers die at his own hand, die cursing his name. He becomes very afraid. His master is growing triumphant, and stays that way for years uncounted. He falls into foul dreams and does not seek to escape them, for at least in dreams he does not have to face the dark lord he once foolishly challenged. The years slip away from him. He exists; what existence is does not occur to him.

With a start, he comes to, drawn from his dreams by a series of sharp cracks punctuated by dull thuds. The throne room is deserted. Morgoth is gone. The walls are shifting, breaking apart; something blindingly bright pours in through the spaces between them. He shrinks back into the shadows of the throne. There are voices, speaking a language that feels familiar, and the noises of people moving. Angband must have been smashed to pieces, he thinks. Someone puts a hand on his shoulder and draws him up, another speaks a word and the chain and collar vanish. There is a soft voice in his ear, the whisper of something long forgotten. A name.

His name. And with it a thousand other memories. Slowly he opens his eyes, peering through the light at the grey-clad lady who bears him.

“I… I would like to see my mother.”


End file.
